


imma dog, too

by lesbinej



Series: a force TWO!!! [1]
Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: :) shenanigans, Anyways, Gen, also yes i know laura is not Literally a dog mutant but it was FUNNY, do not take this seriously, food tw, its literally a joke scene, kate cant figure out whats wrong, like imagine this as a three panel comic instead of a story, lucky is sick, needles tw, this is the first oneshot of a series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 04:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21191393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbinej/pseuds/lesbinej
Summary: Lucky has kennel coutgh. Kate absolutely cannot figure out the source.Title Imma Dog Too/Toni Romiti





	imma dog, too

“What do you  _ mean,  _ Lucky has kennel cough?” Kate slams her hands down on the counter so hard that Lucky whines next to her. “We don’t  _ have  _ any other dogs!”

“Well, kennel cough doesn’t necessarily have to be transmitted through other dogs.” The lab-coated woman with her scalp pulled taut by her hair and bright red lipstick looks irritated with her. To be fair, this is probably the third time Kate has reiterated her statement, so it’s probably grating on her. But also, not to be fair, it’s kind of bullshit. “It can come from dust or poor living conditions—”

“Do you want to come see where we live?” Kate snaps. “The amount of girls I live with barely let me go three days without showering. It’s  _ literally  _ spotless.”

The veterinarian looks kind of disgusted at her. 

“ _ However  _ he contracted it,” she continues, her tone clipped, “He will need treatment. We’ve written him a prescription that you can get filled at any pharmacy—”

Kate groans.  _ More  _ errands. 

“—and you may want to consider keeping a humidifier, as dry air can exacerbate the condition.”

“Cool. Great. Thanks. How much do I owe you?” Kate is almost literally itching to leave—the way this woman is looking at her, the way her mouth has been carefully poised in a purse of disdain this entire time has been slowly but steadily making Kate feel like she might literally attack. 

A few clicks of her keyboard, and then the total pops up onto the card reader: 62.74. 

Normally, Kate would’ve grimaced and patted her pockets down before running out the door quickly, but she swipes the card with the name  _ Karolina M Dean  _ with hardly a second glance. 

_ Click clack, click clack. _ The receipt chugs out of the printer mechanically, and Kate swipes it from the lady’s hand almost before she reaches out to hand it to her. 

“Thanks, bye!”

And she’s out the door before that witch of a woman can say anything else to her, just in case Kate’s thin strand of remaining patience finally snaps. 

Kate’s car door groans when she opens it—she’s been meaning to get that looked at for a little while, but just hasn’t gotten around to it yet. It still drives, at any rate, so it’s probably fine.

“Come on, boy,” Kate chides as Lucky just kind of huffs and looks up at her. His face looks like it’s about to melt off and pool across the parking lot. “Up you go.”

He still just looks at her.

With a resigned sigh, Kate leans down and braces both hands in a fist under his clavicle, hoisting his front end high enough that his front paws can scrabble at the seat—as soon as his feet touch, he practically leaps out of Kate’s arms and into the car. 

She glares at him. He flops down on the passenger seat. 

Whatever. 

The Firebird wheezes the way it always does when Kate tries to start it—with a stomp to the floorboards, the engine finally turns over, sputtering to life. She’s going to have to get America to look at it again, but given that her car is literally older than she is, it might just be suffering from Old Person Disease. 

Lucky’s body shakes with the same grating cough that’s been persistent for the past few weeks—the sound of it makes Kate heart wrench with pity each time. It sounds like the inner lining of his lungs is peeling away and coming up chunky. She leans over and pats his head a few times. 

“We’ll get you better, buddy.”

-

“He still has kennel cough.”

The vet’s heels click on the tile as she walks back into the room with her clipboard, stethoscope around her neck that she had used less than ten minutes ago to listen to Lucky’s lungs. 

“What?” Kate wants to  _ scream  _ in frustration. She did  _ everything  _ right—they washed his bed, gave him a bath, Nico vacuumed the shit out of the house, and Kate even bought a humidifier to put next to Lucky’s bed. Karolina swears up and down she gives Lucky his antibiotics every morning before she leaves for work. So what. The. Fuck?

The vet shakes her head. “If everything you’re telling me is true, then I’m not sure. This could just be a very persistent bout. How old is he?”

“Um.” Kate counts on her fingers for a moment. “At least one.”

The grey hairs on Lucky’s muzzle are more painfully obvious as soon as she says that. 

“We found him as a stray last year,” Kate admits. 

“Has he been vaccinated?”

“Vaccinated?” Kate echoes. 

The vet looks like she swallowed glass—her face screws up in obvious pain. 

“We can take care of that once he’s feeling better. In the meantime—” And here she writes a little bit on her clipboard and then tears off the scrap of paper. “—He’ll need a refill on the antibiotics, and continue with the treatment you’re giving him. Keep him warm and make sure he stays in a low-stress environment.”

Kate takes the prescription, deciding not to tell the vet that she lives with a girl gang of vigilante superheroes that almost die pretty much every day. It’s lower stress for  _ her,  _ at least—but Lucky? Maybe not so much.

“Thanks.” She manages to spit out.

“We’ll schedule a follow-up in another week,” the vet says without acknowledging her. “Call if there are any issues.”

And with that, Kate gets ushered out the door. 

She wants to scream in frustration. 

\- 

“The vet lady might literally kill me—if I don’t kill her first,” Kate sighs loudly, her feet slung over the back of the armchair she’s lying in. America looks kind of bored with her, but she knows she’s listening. She’s just too cool to show it, usually. “I’m gonna have to take Lucky somewhere else if I ever see her again because I really think she’s gonna call Animal Control on me.”

“As she should,” America says. “You’re basically a rabies contagion with a mouth.”

“Rude.”

America shrugs. She’s got Kate’s head in her lap, in an uncharacteristic moment of softness, gently running her fingers through Kate’s hair with one hand, scrolling Twitter on her phone with the other. 

“And there’s literally no way the kennel cough is around somewhere?”

Kate glares pointedly at her. “That dog is more important to me than anything else in the world.”

America’s brow arches, and her lip quirks in a half-smile. “Really?”

Kate meets her dead-on. “I would  _ die  _ for him.”

“He literally smells like a wet rat all the time and lives almost exclusively on pizza.”

“It’s what he likes.” 

“Yeah, and you like gummy bears with vodka—that doesn’t mean you eat them every day, princess.”

Kate sticks her tongue out at America. “I’m pretty sure I do, but whatever—if Lucky dies because of a cold I’ll literally kill myself.”

“You absolutely will not or I’ll portal to Hell and beat your ass.”

Kate rolls over a little onto her stomach, watching as Nico walks by the two of them carrying… a pitcher of water. Kate waves—Nico says, “Hey. You okay?”

“Yeah, just pissed.”

Nico nods and heads up the stairs.

“Karolina swears she’s been giving him his medicine, so I don’t know what else to do,” Kate complains loudly. 

“Maybe drill her a little more. Make her cry.”

“I don’t want that on my conscience.” Kate shakes her head. “I should ask what Doreen has been doing to the carpets—she got something to wash it with, like carpet even needs washing—”

Her stream of consciousness is interrupted by a loud, hacking wheeze in the other room—it sounds almost exactly like Lucky’s cough… except Lucky is sound asleep on the couch five feet away. 

Kate and America make eye contact—and at once, Kate is rolling onto her feet, basically sprinting across the house to whatever made that sound. Her socked feet slide across the wood floor of the hall like one of those ice levels in Mario Kart, and she wobbles a little, unsure of where even she’s headed—the basement door is open, though, so Kate manages to hip check herself against the doorframe and skid to a halt.

The cough sounds again, and this time it’s accompanied by a frustrated snarl and then a  _ snikt!  _ as it sounds like one of the punching bags is being torn open. Kate takes the stairs three at a time, impatient and desperate to finally fucking cure her dog. 

Their basement basically serves as a shitty training room—a few boxing pillars are against one wall, along with weights and what used to be a hanging punching bag that is now a sheet of burlap on the floor with sand spilling out of it, and one Laura Kinney wiping the sweat off her nose, claws glinting in the lamplight. 

“Hey!” Kate shouts, sliding to a stop at the bottom of the stairs—her momentum had carried her so forward that it actually took an effort to not faceplant into the ground. “Was that you coughing?”

Laura just grunts in acknowledgment—she’s so talkative sometimes. Her eyes are a piercing green that Kate always feels like see straight into her soul. It creeps her out some days—others it makes her feel warm.

“Xavier’s had better bags.” Her voice is gravelly, and though it kind of is normally, it’s extra raspy, and when Kate looks a little closer, her eyes look red and sticky. 

“Yeah, we’re kind of broke at the moment.”

Laura’s eyes roll. “We should have better equipment regardless.”

“Sure, sure, I’ll put in a note to Tony Stark—’ _ Can we pretty please have some extra money so we can buy more punchy bags? Laura broke all of ours. Thanks, love you!’”  _

“What do you want?” Laura wipes the sweat off of her forehead—it’s a little rare to even see her break, but she’s probably been down here for a few hours, now. Her hands flex as she stretches her fingers, and her four claws slide in and out,  _ snikt, snikt.  _

“I heard you coughing.”

Laura shakes her head. “It’s just a cold. I heal fast.” 

“Yeah, but how long have you had it?”

A few moments pass before Laura responds, and Kate thinks she might be sizing her up for a Hawkeye skin to hang on her wall before she says begrudgingly: “Few weeks. Persistent thing.”

Kate feels kind of like the dude from Always Sunny in front of the corkboard with the red tacks all up on it, and all the red string, and he looks manic—that’s her, right in this instant, as it feels like her brain is spitting on her. 

“Oh. Okay.”

Laura’s eyes narrow. “Why?”

“Well—uh—this is gonna sound really mean—especially cause I don’t mean it like this at  _ all _ —”

Just one of Laura’s claws unsheathe—she looks impatient. “Get to the point.”

“Okay—um—ithinkyou’regettingLuckysick.”

“You… what?”

“I. Think you’re getting Lucky sick.” Kate bites down, bracing her teeth. “Have you—have you ever heard of kennel cough?”

Laura doesn’t look offended—just confused, and Laura’s confused expression usually comes across as skeptical or suspicious. “No?”

“It’s a—um—well, it’s a sickness you can get, and Lucky’s had it for a few weeks, and we can’t really get it to go away—”

“Lucky, your dog?”

“No, the other Lucky.”

“Wh—”

“Yes, my Lucky.” Sometimes Kate forgets how literal Laura can be—she supposes it comes from spending basically the first eighteen years of her life as either a literal child weapon or friendless and persecuted. Such is how the cookie crumbles. 

“Oh.” Laura still frowns with confusion. “Is it debilitating? Should I contact Dr. McC—”

“No! Um—” Kate snaps quickly. “Just uh, just come with me to the vet tomorrow. We should be able to get you and Lucky a treatment.”

“The… vet.”

“...Yes?”

Laura’s hatred of doctors knows no bounds, but if she doesn’t agree to this, Kate might kill her because the alternative is letting Lucky die of a cough and that is just not happening. Laura might see it in her eyes, or maybe she trusts Kate a little more than she trusts most people, because she sighs, and her claws relax. Good—Kate can never focus when those things are in her space. They’re awfully pointy for Kate’s liking. 

“Fine. If it’ll make this cough go away.”

-

The vet stares at Kate’s five foot one friend made of pure loathing as she squats on the counter, claws unsheathed and looking murderous. 

“You said you found the source of the kennel cough.”

“I did!” Kate grins proudly—Lucky will now  _ not  _ die and she is a great mother to one canine dog and a great friend to her canine friend. Lucky, underneath Kate’s chair, woofs in agreement. His tail thumps the ground loudly.

“That… this is a  _ girl.” _

“She’s part dog.” 

Laura’s head snaps in Kate’s direction, and Kate can’t help but yelp in surprise as Laura’s claws swipe at her face. 

“Thin ice, Katie.” She growls.

The vet’s eyes widen as she seems to notice the claws, and makes a few hurried scribbles on her clipboard. Good. Kate hopes she’s peeing her pants right now. 

“Well, um—I’m not sure how the vaccine would work on hybrids—”

“ _ Mutant,”  _ Laura hisses, and Kate knows all of her sharp teeth are on full display for the vet because it looks like she might literally pass out at the moment.

“Mutant, yes, sorry—we’re just not sure—um—hold please.” And the vet books it directly out the back room.

“ _ Part dog?”  _ Laura snarls, as soon as the door slams shut. Kate shrugs.

“Am I  _ lying?”  _

“Kind of, actually!” Her lips are parted in a snarl. 

“You have claws and you can smell like a dog, sooooo—if you literally are giving my dog kennel cough because of it, we should get rid of it.”

Laura looks like she wants to argue, but the vet comes back in, shaking, carrying two hypodermic needles with orange fluid in the syringes. 

Kate’s eyes widen at the sight. Oh, no.

Laura’s pupils literally narrow into slits—is that part of the dog thing?—and the rumbling in her throat is definitely  _ not  _ human.

The vet’s knees are quaking at this point.

“So, um, the dog or the—” She glances at Laura, terrified, “Or you, first, dear?”

“If you come one step closer with that thing, you’ll be able to see all 20 feet of your intestines on the ground in front of you.”

The vet’s knees lock still. 

“Laura,” Kate chastises, and she stands up, swipes the needle from the vet, and turns around to hand it to her wolverine friend. “Be  _ nice.” _

Still growling low in her throat, Laura takes the syringe. “Does it matter where this goes?”

The vet shakes her head violently. “Just into a large muscle. Like an EpiPen.”

Laura grunts and stabs it right into her thigh.

“Whatever.” 

She hops off the counter, sheathes her claws, and looks at the veterinarian who, at this point, looks whiter than a sheet of paper, before making some noise of disgust and stalking out of the room with a huff.”

“She’s just like that,” Kate assures the vet, though she doesn’t hide the satisfaction at how absolutely shell-shocked the vet is. “Geez, you’d think you’d never seen a mutant before.”

And with that, the vet promptly passes out on the floor.

-

Lucky woofs happily as Doreen sets down a plate of actual food in front of him, shooting a sideways glance at Kate as she does so. 

“So, it was Laura?”

“Yeah,” Kate says, slurping the ramen that Doreen made for dinner that night. Everyone loves it when it’s Doreen’s night to cook, and Kate is no exception—the food she makes is phenomenal, every time. 

Kate watches as Tippy Toe sidles up to Lucky’s plate, sniffs, and then scurries off with a squeak as Lucky chases her off with a  _ snap!  _

“You know better,” Doreen chastises as her squirrel comes to rest on her shoulder. Then, back to Kate—“Wow. I didn’t realize there was enough wolverine in her to actually get dog diseases.”

Kate shrugs. “It’s also kinda weird that her immune system didn’t just snap it away.” 

“Her healing might not affect her immune system? If it did, she’d have the worst allergies  _ ever. _ ”

“Maybe she does, and she just takes a shitload of Zyrtec or something.”

Doreen snorts. “Laura Kinney, taking medicine? She’d rather die.”

Kate nods, solemn, then chugs the last of the broth at the bottom of her bowl. She belches loudly. “Thanks.”

Doreen’s lips purse. “No problem.”

“But yeah,” Kate sets her bowl down. “I think that was Laura’s first trip to the vet.”

“Do we have to take her back?” Doreen takes the bowl from the counter, placing it in the open dishwasher at her feet. “Like, a follow-up?”

Kate shakes her head. “I don’t think I’m allowed to—they finally fucking banned me.”

Doreen laughs at that. “They banned you?”

“Something about harassing the vet? Which—whatever, I hated her. I’m pretty sure she charged me extra for like, looking at her wrong.”

“You look at a lot of people wrong.” 

“Maybe they’re looking at  _ me  _ wrong,” Kate says defensively. 

Doreen shakes her head, shutting the dishwasher door and starting the wash cycle. “Whatever, Kitkat, I’m going to bed.”

“Goodnight.” Kate two-fingered salutes her. “And thanks for your help.” 

“Anytime. And by the way, the vet I take Tippy Toe to is way nicer.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Doreen’s bushy tail disappears up the stairs, and Kate watches her go for a few beats before looking down at Lucky. He’s finished eating—the plate is clean, which is unusual, but Doreen must have worked her magic on him, too—and he’s snoring peacefully a few feet away, breathing easily. 

_ Good boy,  _ Kate things.  _ Good dog.  _

**Author's Note:**

> literally this is a JOKE if u offer constructive criticism ill knife u  
if u follow me on twitter u know ive tweeted about an a-force two lineup! so im doing a series of oneshots since I cant write comics, based on this team of four girls <3


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